Throwback Read: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly about Bridgerton

This one is a throwback to the time I decided to rant about the colour blind casting in the first season of Bridgerton.

Once upon a time young Diti, frustrated with the lockdown rules, started a blog with a friend called Footnotes & Scribbles. In January 2021, right after watching the first season of the hit show Bridgerton, she wrote an article about it on the blog. It might have been a little bit of a rant, but I don’t judge her!

Since then there has been another season of the show and a spin-off about Queen Charlotte. I am guilty of watching (and slightly guiltily enjoying) both of them. I recently started rewatching the show and was reminded of all the things I enjoyed and didn’t about it, along with that I spoke about Julia Quinn’s books in my review of Love and Other Words. So I thought it would be a good idea to revisit the article and then get into things that have changed since January 2021.

Here goes nothing!

Bridgerton: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

In 1813, Daphne Bridgerton, the belle of the year’s London season, is escorted into a ballroom filled with people of colour by her eldest brother accompanied by a string quartet rendition of Ariana Grande’s ‘Thank You, Next’; and you already know that you are not watching a typical period costume drama. The only way that you have not heard about the new Netflix series Bridgerton is if you have been living under a rock because the show has taken the internet by storm. Bridgerton comes to us from Shondaland the same people who gave us Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal. But unlike its predecessors, Bridgerton is a Period Fantasy Drama that gives the audience a great route for escapism while attempting to be inclusive. 

The show is adapted from a series of books by Julia Quinn that follows the eight alphabetically named Bridgerton siblings as they either attempt to either escape or immerse themselves into the marriage market of London’s season during the Regency era. The first book, The Duke And I, follows the eldest daughter, Daphne, as she attempts to find the perfect husband for herself by the end of her first season. During this search she comes across her brother’s old friend Simon Bassett, the new Duke of Hastings, who is the perfect match for her in the eyes of everyone except for her brother who knows all the things that his friend has done that cannot be spoken off in polite society. As Daphne and Simon decide to fool everyone by pretending to be ‘attached’ it is revealed that Simon’s redeeming quality, that excuses his rakish behaviour, comes from his childhood and the trauma that his father inflicted on him. Like any self-respecting romance reader knows, no fake-dating ends without the characters falling in love. That is exactly what happens to Daphne and Simon and they fulfill their Disney-Princess-happy-ending destinies.

Unlike the books the show does not focus on one sibling at a time and instead gives us an all-encompassing storyline that starts at the beginning of London’s 1813 season. Unlike every other book adaptation, the fact that this one strays from the source material is not a bad thing. The first book disguises a woman raping a man as something she does because of her desperate need to get pregnant, the second one tries to excuse adultery by giving the readers a sad backstory and in the third installment the man basically gives his love interest a choice between either being his mistress or a servant in his house. (I can imagine where the rest of the series is headed.) All the stories in this series, like most other regency / period dramas, are about white people and the makers of the show right from preliminary interviews and posters marketed it as an inclusive and racially integrated show. 

In my opinion, the showmakers could have gone one of three ways: 1. Make a show that was historically accurate in its representation of the lives of POC characters of the time. 2. Give us a fantasy world where POC lived lives of the aristocracy without their skin colour playing any role in their characterisation. 3. Develop the world in such a way that explains how the POC became part of high society while commenting on its socio-economic repercussions. Instead of sticking to any one of these options, the showmakers gave us a confused, half-hearted mixture of all three, resulting in the audience feeling like the initial marketing aimed at duping them in the same way that clickbait YouTube titles do. Nothing about this show is historically accurate and I don’t see anything wrong with this decision. I call it a fantasy period drama because the characters wear clothes with dyes and beading that did not exist in the time. They interact in ways that were not prevalent during the regency era. Queen Charlotte is played by a woman of colour and the Prince Regent is completely missing. To be frank, the show could have easily been set in any time period and nothing much would have changed. And that is fine for what the show is trying to position itself as; escapism. So why could they not have just had people of colour in prominent roles and left it at that? In this fantasy version of the 19th century where women step out without bonnets and people make out on the roads, we could have just as easily digested the idea that people of colour were part of those circles.

Instead, the showmakers perfunctorily attempt to explain how such a society came to exist. This explanation comes only in the fourth episode and it feels like a cop-out because while it hints at the existence of racial inequality in society it does not take the conversation forward. Slavery still existed in 1813 and if the showmakers want us to believe that people of colour were allowed into high society for the sole reason that the King fell in love with a black woman and then do not tell us what happened to those slaves it is bad world building. The racial subtext is buried under so many layers of other issues like classism, gender equality and the ‘campiness’ of the other characters that it is easily missed if you’re not looking for it.  

Whether you support Bridgerton’s brand of colourblind casting or don’t, the colourism and stereotypes in the casting are evident. Simon Bassett and Marina Thompson are the only two primary characters of colour, both played by fairly light-skinned actors who fit into the Western idea of beauty. Even then, Marina’s storyline is the saddest in the show and it further propagates the stereotype of the black woman in trouble. The Duke of Hastings, Lady Danbury and Queen Charlotte are all secondary characters who are dark-skinned, the first is the main villain in the show, the second a woman deemed ‘scary’ by most of the other characters and the third an eccentric, who is mostly the comedic relief. The rest of the people of colour are ancillary characters or fillers in the ballroom scenes. The only person of, what I’m assuming is, Indian descent has two dialogues and is characterised as the ready-for-anything sex symbol. So what does this say about the show’s claims of racial integration?

Very often while reading books categorised as classics we use the phrase ‘product of its time’ to explain away certain problematic tropes that were acceptable during the time it was written. I, however, refuse to do that when talking about historical fiction shows and books written now. I spent several episodes of Bridgerton being annoyed at the actions of the characters. It might have been acceptable at the time for Anthony to behave the way he did with respect to Nigel Berbrooke’s marriage proposal, but watching him enforce his decision on his sister in 2021 just made me furious. (Side note: Anthony has to be the shadiest character in the show.) Statements like ‘If I am unable to find a husband then I am worthless.’ and ‘It is because I regard you so highly that I cannot marry you.’ are made quite seriously. The idea that the fake-attachment made Simon ‘unavailable’ and Daphne ‘desirable’ because of her association with the duke is promoted. Violet Bridgerton says to her daughter, ‘I have taught you to believe that marriage is the best that life has to offer, and that remains true. But it is not simply a partner that marriage provides. You will have comfort, a house to tend, and most importantly, children’ as a way to convince Daphne that it was right for her to accept Nigel’s marriage proposal, which was thinly-veiled blackmail. And while the repercussions of premarital sex faced by men and women are vastly different, even today, I deciphered that the subtext of Marina’s story was to hold her in contrast to Anthony or Benedict, but anyone else watching the show who was not looking for this idea would have completely missed it. Just like the issue with race it was implied and never explicitly mentioned. Eloise Bridgerton is by far the most relatable character with her dreams of doing more than what was expected from women in the time and her distaste for the theatrics of London’s season, yet as the token feminist character she doesn’t really do anything substantial. And for someone who constantly criticises media for representing progressive women only as the ones who smoke, drink and have sex, the scene where Eloise smokes on the swings with Benedict was jarring.

As a fantasy, the show has a lot of potential. The aesthetic is immaculate and every frame is vibrant and picturesque. It is rare to see people of colour in shows set during the time and it is easy to get lost in the opulence and melodrama of the show. But when a show is being praised for half-hearted attempts at racial integration by doing the bare minimum we need to reevaluate the bar we are setting for creators. The show is romantic and the perfect world it represents is an antidote for the horrible times we live in, but enjoying a piece of fiction does not mean we close our eyes to the problems in it. So even though I am pointing out the flaws in the books or the shows, it does not take away from the fact that people everywhere, including me, immensely enjoyed it. The show, especially seeing a black man play the soft, romantic lead, (spoon scene anyone) was to me the perfect amount of cheese and I am probably a little in love with Nicola Coughlan. My criticism should not be taken as advice against watching Bridgerton, instead as a reminder that while we enjoy the steamy romance we must point out how the show can do better. At the end of the day, Bridgerton’s casting of people of colour in a period drama is a step in the right direction We just need to see much more of it and better attempts at it.

Recommendation: Watch the TV show Harlots that follows the lives of sex workers in 18th century London if you want to see some more People of Colour in the Regency period.

Many creators today talk about colourblind casting today, but is it all that it is cracked up to be? Read: The Guardian

A discussion on the colourism problem of Bridgerton. Watch:

There’s, I think, a running joke about the costumes in Bridgerton. Watch:

Here’s What Has Changed:

• The second season of Bridgerton follows Anthony Bridgerton. I have no idea what magic the makers of the show have pulled off, but suddenly the show changed the shadiest character into one of the most endearing ones! And he is so good looking! Now that the third season is in production, a similar magical veil has been dropped on Colin Bridgerton. There is something special in the water that is served to the main characters on the set of the show!

• With the character of Kate Sharma, the second season of the show gives us Indian representation that is better than the one in the first season. But as an Indian I have to shout about just how frustrating the representation is. Once again Hollywood forgets that Indians are not a homogenous group. Our language, our culture, our terms for family members, are not all the same. And for a show as big as Bridgerton, creators should have put in a little more effort into doing their homework.

• The Queen Charlotte spin-off gives me a bit of what I needed in terms of explanations when it came to the racial integration and world building. It finally gives us a reason for why things work the way they do in this world. The prequel, by far, is the best of the series. It is entertaining and keeps the escapism of the first two seasons alive. But the plot and narrative structure make logical sense. We get a backstory that makes sense and a love story that is beautifully told in its dual timeline.

• I have some really high hopes from the third season of the show!